


The More Things Change

by Salazar101



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Drinking, M/M, Weed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 14:44:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20244553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salazar101/pseuds/Salazar101
Summary: The more they stay the same.  There's this beat up old white truck that's followed Jack through his entire career, but some things hold greater significance the longer they've been rusting away beside you.





	The More Things Change

**Author's Note:**

> No joke but the song that inspired this fic was [Video Killed the Radio Star](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGBohd0V2Mo) I like to imagine that this song still plays on the radio as they're driving their car down the dark road.
> 
> Featuring art by the astounding [airafleeza](https://twitter.com/airafleeza)
> 
> Tumblr: [ohgodsalazarwhy](https://ohgodsalazarwhy.tumblr.com/)  
Twitter:[ NoviceSalazar](https://twitter.com/NoviceSalazar)

S.E.P. was the hardest thing Jack had ever done in his entire life. He’d thought basic was hard? Child’s play compared to what they had to do here; the only nice thing was that now he had Gabriel Reyes at his side, and that made just about anything better. They shared a dorm, their rooms on either side of shared living space and kitchen, they were in the same training group now that the amount of living soldiers was small enough to merge them all into one group.

Jack had seen so much death, he’d watched men fall, foaming, on the training field. They were whisked away quickly but he’d watched the life draining out of their eyes as spit and blood poured from between their lips. Every time he’d look at Gabriel and silently wonder,  _ when will that happen to me? To Gabe? _

Death was their constant companion on base, dogging their heels as they ran laps, or hovering over them as they lifted weights. Jack sometimes felt death shared his bed and that he might not wake every time he shut his eyes.

So when Gabriel recommended something wildly inappropriate, something that could get both of them court marshalled and thrown out of the program, Jack agreed without a thought. What was the point of being a super soldier if you didn’t use it to cause a little havoc? That was Gabriel’s motto, and Jack was just infatuated enough to do anything he wanted. They’d snuck out in the dead of night, moving too silently to be caught as they rushed past the rooms of their superiors at the end of their hall.

“Shhh,” Gabriel scolded as they crouched nervously by the fence, “you’re going to get us fucking caught, Morrison!”

“Maybe if you shut the fuck up and did what you said you could do, we’d already be out of here!” Jack hissed in reply.

Gabriel punched him in the side and Jack punched him in the shoulder and they almost got off track struggling but managed to keep it to a few shoves before Gabriel was getting back to working on the electrified fence. He had a pair of wire cutters in one hand, but he had to time each snip when the fence wasn’t electrified and that meant it was taking fucking forever.

Slowly, too slowly, Gabriel snipped out a hole in the fence just big enough for them to crawl through. The military base they were trained in was top secret, and they weren’t allowed to leave. Jack supposed the government had spent too much money on them to let them out from under their big thumb, but they’d made one major mistake. How do you keep a pair of young super soldiers  _ in _ when they didn’t  _ want _ to be in?   


As far as Jack was concerned... you didn’t. He crawled out after Gabriel, both of them snickering under their breath as they kept low to the ground and made their way to where the base kept their government vehicles.

“Let’s take this one,” Jack whispered, pointing at a massive truck meant for hauling 20 men at a time in the back of it.

“You’re a fucking idiot, Morrison, we need to take this one!” Gabriel was nearly giggling as he climbed up onto a tank.

Jack felt giddy, maybe a little high, as he followed Gabriel through the waves of cars and trucks and tanks. They smothered their laughter behind their palms, leaning on each other for support like they were drunk. Jack finally stopped beside an old, white truck and found that the door was unlocked. It was the kind of truck he would have seen on his family farm, the hover technology old, some of the first, with a bench seat and a big black steering wheel. Before Jack could climb in, Gabriel grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him back.

“I get to drive,” he said, sticking out his tongue before he plopped behind the wheel.

“I want to drive!” Jack tried to pull him out but Gabriel was stronger than he was. He climbed into the passenger seat nursing a split lip.

“I’m older than you,” Gabriel said smugly as he ripped the underside of the dash off with one hand, “so I get to drive.”

“Only by a few years,” Jack muttered.

While Gabriel tried to hot-wire the car, Jack twisted to dig through all the detritus crammed behind their seat. Tools, some scratchy old rope, a ripped hoodie. Jack sat back down and popped open the glove compartment.

“Oh.”

“What?” Gabriel grunted as he fumbled with the wires.

Jack reached in and pulled out a baggy, filled halfway with joints, and a bic lighter. Gabriel’s eyes lit up and he shared a wild grin with Jack.

“Oh, our night just got a lot better.”

The car started silently, all these electric hover cars did, and it wearily lifted off the ground as the wheels twisted in and engaged. Gabriel shifted into high gear and the car lifted up high enough that he could twist the wheel and drive out over the vehicles below. Without hover correction it was a bumpy ride, Jack yelping as the car bounced over the cars and trucks, nearly getting sent into the ceiling with one particularly strong drop. Gabriel brought it back down to mid gear and they settled back down to a normal height, driving down the road with their headlights off until they were far enough away from base that no one would see them.

“We should get some beer,” said Jack eagerly, “let’s go to town! I know there’s one near here, I heard Captain Jones talking about it.”

“Are you even old enough to drink?” Gabriel asked, like he didn’t know, lips curled into a small smile. He looked perfectly relaxed behind the wheel, one elbow on the edge of the door so he could rest his cheek in his palm as he drove with one hand.

“Does it matter?” Jack challenged.

“No, you think I give a shit?”

They drove into town and then sat in the truck arguing about how to get some booze. They didn’t have a penny to their name and eventually Jack was talked into flirting with the girl at the front counter while Gabriel stole a few six packs. This was the most irresponsible thing Jack had ever done in his entire life and he loved it, it felt like instead of running from death he was courting it, challenging it. Or maybe death didn’t matter when you were really living.

They laughed and cracked open beer as Gabriel drove off from the convenience store, heading into the empty hills.

“That girl would have bent over the counter for you, Morrison!” Gabriel snorted out a little beer and coughed, truck swerving a little as he wiped his face off with his arm.

“Uhg, no thanks,” Jack finished his beer and dropped the can on the floor between his feet before cracking open another. He opened up the little bag and slipped a joint between his lips then lit it up. He took a drag and then burst into a coughing fit as the smoke irritated his lungs.

Gabriel howled with laughter, slapping Jack on the back hard enough to bruise, “You never smoked before, country boy?”

“Sh-shut up, Reyes!” Jack coughed, nearly spitting the joint out before he pinched it between his fingers. Gabriel snatched it away from him and took a deep drag, smoke pouring out of his nose. He looked suave as hell, Jack couldn’t stop staring.

“That’s how you do it,” he said haughtily, handing the joint back to Jack, noticeably shorter than it had been.

Jack tried again, and this time his coughing was a little muted, he managed to blow out the smoke and then wash it all down with some bitter beer. Shitty stuff, Gabriel couldn’t steal something more expensive? “Am I supposed to be feeling something?” he asked as he handed Gabriel the joint.

“Yeah,” Gabriel breathed, the cab was starting to get smokey and the smell was overwhelming. “But I have a feeling we’ll have to smoke more than this to get anything out of it. Fucking S.E.P., making everything harder.”

“Could just be shitty weed,” Jack mused, tossing the used up joint on the floor.

“Could be shitty weed,” Gabriel agreed.

Gabriel ran over a pothole and the whole truck jumped, fucking old-ass hover technology! Jack spilled his beer all over the seat and floor, filling the cab with the smell as he swore and tried to lick some off his wrist and hand while Gabriel howled with laughter.

They drove up to an outlook, staring down at the base in the distance and the lights of the little town twinkling nearby. Jack sighed and sucked on a new joint between sips of his beer, this was way better than watching another one of Gabriel’s stupid soap operas. He put his feet up on the dash, slouching down on the seat to get more comfortable.

“Can’t believe you had it in you, boy scout,” Gabriel said around a cloud of smoke, he had a joint of his own, “steal a car, smoke weed and drink beer underaged...what would Mommy and Daddy Morrison say?”

“Something about how I’m being corrupted by a much,  _ much _ older man,” Jack sighed, crushing his empty beer can and adding it to the growing pile on the floor. He was starting to feel it now, woozy and a little floaty, completely relaxed. Hungry.

“I’m only a few years older,” Gabriel said, he sounded offended even if earlier he’d been using his age to bully Jack out from behind the wheel.

“An  _ ancient _ old man,” Jack laughed, holding his hands far apart as if to represent the massive timeline of Gabriel’s life. “Brittle boned, hunched back--”

“I’ll show you brittle boned you little shit-” Jack’s laughter was cut off by a hard kiss, bitter with beer and smoky with weed. He groaned, one hand resting on Gabriel’s thigh for support as Jack twisted into the kiss.

He was never going to forget this night.

\------

One of the first things Gabriel did as Commander of Overwatch was requisition an old, beat up white truck that had never stopped smelling like beer. Official Overwatch business, of course, and it was hidden among plenty of other more reasonable requests. Jack had looked over the forms himself and was even the one to accept the items at their base. Weapons, vehicles, and one beat up old white truck.

It wasn’t like they had the time to go driving right now, Overwatch was kept busy fighting back the encroaching omnic threat, bouncing all over the world to shut down omniums and god programs. Jack and Gabriel barely got a single moment alone, their relationship, or whatever it was, was on the back burner. Relegated to longing glances and their fingers brushing when they passed in the halls.   


The truck was always out front with their other, newer, vehicles though. Jack would sometimes run his hand over the hood and feel the chipping paint under his palm before he moved on to climb into something more modern and useful. The endless fighting, fear of death, or even extinction, was a hard burden to bare. He supposed it was only a matter of time before Gabriel found him while he was doing paperwork.

“Get up, boy scout,” he ordered.

Jack shot to his feet and gave a salute, but it was undercut by the shit-eating grin on his face. Gabriel hated when he got formal with him. “Sir, yes sir!”

He was rewarded with a punch to the shoulder, “Don’t sass me, Morrison. Come on, we have exactly 3 hours of free time and I don’t want to waste it.”

“How’d you figure that out?” Jack asked, striding beside Gabriel as they headed towards the bases parking lot, “making Ana do your work for a bit?”

Gabriel’s lips curled into a small smile, “Maybe...” he stopped by the crappy old truck and opened the driver’s side door with a squeal, “hop in, Morrison.”   
  
“You know, we have nicer options,” Jack said as he climbed into the passenger seat, it still smelled like stale beer in here somehow, even though it had been years since he’d spilled it all over himself and the seat. He ran his hand over the dusty dash as Gabriel got it into gear and started to drive off base. This time they weren’t sneaking off, it wasn’t a crime to take the car anywhere, and both of them were over the legal drinking age.

Somehow it still felt delightfully illicit when Gabriel pulled out a bag of weed and some rolling papers from inside his blue duster, “No weak-ass shit this time, boy scout. I’ve got the good stuff.”   
  
“You going to buy some non-crappy beer, too?” Jack asked, grabbing the bag and papers to try and roll out a joint while Gabriel flew down the road towards a nearby convenience store. He hadn’t really smoked any since their first time in the truck, Jack preferred cigarettes, but something about this old truck demanded weed. And cheap beer, apparently.

“We don’t have to drink piss,” Jack complained when Gabriel dropped the six-pack of Busch onto the seat between them, “we have money now!”

“Shut the fuck up, Morrison, I’m the Commander and I say we drink Busch and only Busch in this truck.”

Funny how rituals start.

\--------

“So... Strike-Commander.”

Jack curled up a little tighter, feet against the glove compartment so his knees were almost pressed against his chest, “I didn’t fucking ask for this, I told you, I asked them to pick you. Or Ana. I don’t deserve this, I’m nobody!”

Gabriel drove over a pothole and the dip almost had Jack kneeing himself in the face. He let his legs drop into the pile of old beer cans that remained from every other trip they’d taken in this old truck. They clinked and crinkled as Jack crushed some of them under his big boots. He was afraid that Gabriel was pissed at him, pissed at being passed up for the promotion he deserved just because Jack was a pretty face who looked good on a poster.

“You deserve it,” said Gabriel after they’d driven in silence for a while.

“ _ What _ ?” he looked at Gabriel like he’d sprouted a second head. “You don’t have to humor me, Gabe, we both know-”

“Would you get your fucking head out of your ass and relax?” Gabriel said harshly. “Look, you’re a damn good soldier, but you’re an even better leader. I may have been Commander but our strike team looked to you. You’re going to be damn good at it.”

“But... you...”

“I never fucking wanted the job!”   


Jack jerked back a little as Gabriel yelled, shoulder pressing against the window. Silence. For a bit.

“You didn’t want it?”

“No,” Gabriel’s tone was final, and he knew he could trust Gabriel to never lie to him. It was the one thing he’d always been able to count on. “I’m good in times of war, when hard choices have to be made fast, but we’re in a time of peace now, and it’s your time to shine, boy scout.”

Jack glanced down at the Busch beer cans on the floor, regardless of whether or not he deserved the promotion, or if their superiors had been making the choice for the right reason, Jack swore he’d do right by Overwatch and his team. Do right by Gabriel.   


“That’s Strike-Commander Boy Scout to you, Reyes.”

They stared at each other and then laughed so hard they nearly cried and Gabriel almost drove into a ditch.

\--------

“You ever want to drop everything and just... fuckin’... drive?”

Jack blew out a cloud of smoke, fingers of his other hand rubbing along the stubble on Gabriel’s scalp. They were stretched out over the bench seat, or as stretched out as they could be. Gabe’s head against Jack’s chest, their clothes scattered on the floor among old joints and crushed beer cans.

“God, every fucking time McCree opens his stupid fucking mouth,” Gabriel groaned, reaching up to pluck the joint from Jack’s fingers and take a drag before handing it back. He blew out a cloud of smoke and coughed lightly.

“You’re the one who brought him in,” Jack said without pity, “ _ begged _ me to let you recruit him. I said ‘Gabe, do you really want to recruit some kid who dresses like an old cigarette ad’ and  _ you _ said-”

“Shut up shut up shut up,” Gabriel groaned, elbowing Jack lightly, “I get it.”

Jack grinned and finished off the joint, letting it fall onto the floor of the truck to join all the others. This was the only place either of them could relax these days. If the public knew that one of Jack’s favorite hobbies was hotboxing and drinking Busch in a shitty old truck with Gabe; his public image would be ruined.

He let his hand slide down Gabriel’s naked chest, fingers splaying over where he could feel his heart beating. “Think we should head back soon?” he asked.

“Mmm... nah,” Gabriel twisted and shifted up to catch Jack’s lips in a smoky kiss. “They can survive without us... for a little while longer.”

Jack was inclined to agree as he cupped the back of Gabriel’s head and brought him in for another kiss.

\----------

Jack tapped his nail on the doorframe, eyes on the scenery passing by the window as his feet kicked through old cans. It felt like someone had a fist around his heart and was squeezing, squeezing, squeezing until his heart could only stutter weakly. Gabriel was at the wheel, knuckles pale as he gripped it tightly. He had a muscle working at his jaw, and a vein pulsing at his temple.

The tense silence was like the hiss before a stick of dynamite went off, everyone holding their breaths until the boom. Jack looked back out the window, nail scratching along the door, tapping, playing with the manual lock.

“Knock it off,” Gabriel snapped.

Boom.

“Oh, talking to me, are you?” Jack muttered, dropping his hands into his lap, “not sure why you’re pissed, I’m the one getting fucked because of  _ your  _ mistakes.”

“I made the right choice!” Gabriel yelled, slamming his palm against the wheel with a muted thud. “If a bunch of fuckin’ suits can’t see that-- if YOU can’t see that--!”

“I put my fucking neck out for you!” Jack roared, grabbing Gabriel’s shirt at the shoulder and yanking, stretching it out as he tried to haul him closer. The truck swerved and they both pulled away from each other, falling silent once more.

Jack took several deep breaths.

Gabriel drove until they reached the lookout and parked the car.

“If it weren’t for me you’d be court marshalled.”

“I didn’t ask you to stick your neck out for me.”

Jack just stared at him, not sure if what was choking him was rage or loss. Loss for the tattered remains of the relationship they’d once had, or rage that Gabriel didn’t seem to care about what they were losing. A little more everyday. With every suspicious glance, with every screaming match, with every glass shattered against a wall or punches thrown. The more Overwatch crumbled out from under them the more their relationship broke apart into tiny pieces.

Instead of yelling, like he wanted to, he opened the glove compartment and pulled out a baggy of stale joints. Who knew how old they were, Jack didn’t remember when they’d made them and left them in here. There hadn’t been a lot of opportunities to go for a ride. Maybe that was why they were getting distant, suspicious of each other. They’d neglected this.

Jack grabbed the bic lighter, the same one from all those years ago refilled again and again, and lit up. He held it out to Gabriel and waited to see if he’d take it. Gabriel looked between Jack and the gently smoking joint, the skunky smell already filling the cab, and then sighed and took it. Jack lit his own and took a deep drag, the weed wasn’t that potent, but it was more the habit that soothed and relaxed him, the ritual, than the drug.

Gabriel slouched over the wheel as he smoked, eyes distant. He was still beautiful to Jack, after all these years. How had the years passed them by so quickly? Jack had been nothing more than a kid when he’d first met Gabriel, and now here he was with white streaks in his hair and lines set into his face. Each of those years... where had they gone? How had they gotten here, to this awful place where everything they’d built was breaking?

“I missed this.”

Jack came back to himself as Gabriel spoke. “I missed it too,” he said gruffly, watching a trail of smoke waft off the burning end of the joint instead of having to look at Gabriel anymore. “I miss  _ you. _ ”

“Well, here I am,” Gabriel sounded a little sarcastic, but his edge had been temporarily blunted, “at the Strike-Commander’s mercy.”

“Gabe,” Jack sighed, taking a breath of smoke and then dropping the joint, “for tonight, can we just... can we just be Jack and Gabe? No Blackwatch, no Overwatch, no titles...” Jack had a feeling deep in his gut that this would be the last time they could pretend. At the rate everything was falling apart they’d be buried soon enough. “Please?” he added on after a moment of Gabriel just watching him.

Smoke poured from Gabe’s nostrils in a long, weary sigh. He dropped the joint at his feet and then scoot out from behind the wheel, “Well, come on then Jackie, let’s pretend.”

The kisses they shared that night were real, the loving touches were real. When Jack said  _ I love you _ it was real. Gabriel fucking him up against the door was real and so too was how gentle he was after as they tangled their legs together and cuddled on the seat, Gabriel draped over Jack like a blanket just so they could both sort of fit.

Yet the drive back made it all seem like a dream, because as soon as Jack stepped foot outside of the truck it was all crushed under the weight of their mistakes and responsibilities. Gabriel slammed the door shut and stalked away without a word while Jack just stood there, one hand on the door as he watched him go. Whatever they still had was real... it was simply too delicate to survive.

\----------

The truck had been destroyed when the Swiss HQ had been destroyed, like everything else in Jack’s life it was obliterated in one massive explosion. It had taken Gabe from him, it had taken Overwatch from him, and it had even taken that little piece of happiness from him. Soldier 76 was supposed to be a man without attachments, but Jack wasn’t a machine, he couldn’t erase decades of memories.

So when he saw a beat up old truck parked on the side of the road in Cairo he had to freeze for a minute just to stare. The crowd flowed around him as he stopped in his tracks, a few people cursing as they almost slammed into his broad back. He was wearing civvies, jeans, t-shirt, a light white button-up shirt, and a ratty old baseball cap to shade his face and hide his scars when he kept his eyes on the ground.

It was white, with the same kind of hover technology, paint peeling and bench seat faded. Jack glanced around and walked a bit closer, looking in the window and half expecting to see Busch cans littering the floor and joints scattered among them. The truck was actually immaculately clean, which made Jack’s heart ache a little. Where was the mess? He tried the door without thinking about it and it was... unlocked. Stupid or naive to leave a car unlocked in this neighborhood... someone was practically  _ begging _ to have their car stolen.

Jack climbed into the passenger seat and shut the door with a snap. No one spared him a glance, surely anyone getting into a car and just sitting in the passenger seat  _ owned _ that car. Jack popped open the glove compartment, but this too was impeccably organized. Just a little notebook and some spare change. He shut it with a snap.

This was stupid. What was he chasing exactly? That feeling of peace as he and Gabriel smoked and laughed until they cried? Safety of having Gabriel’s head on his chest or their lips slotted together in a sweet kiss that would quickly turn hard? Every single piece of that truck, the one that wasn’t anymore, had Gabriel all over it. Jack idly realized he’d never driven it, not even once. He glanced around and then slid across the bench seat to sit behind the wheel, reaching up to run his fingers over the grooves in the back of it.

Soldier 76 wouldn’t steal this car because it was tactically useless, it was an old piece of shit without any hover correction. It wasn’t as fast as newer cars, it had worse steering control. It was too recognizable. Soldier 76 would leave the cab and walk off, because this car meant nothing to him, it represented nothing at all.

Jack Morrison ripped open the dash and hot wired it.


End file.
